"[9] In the same interview referenced above, Finley attests the latter meaning to the image of a Ktunaxa warrior shooting an enemy, drawing out the arrow, and licking the blood from the arrowhead.

"[10] Ksanka, meaning "people of the standing arrow" is the name of the southeastern-most of the seven bands, who are today primarily associated with what is now northwestern Montana, and are politically organized within the CSKT.

[22] Some Upper Kootenay participated in a Plains Native lifestyle for part of the year, crossing the Rockies to the east for the bison hunt.

[citation needed] The Ktunaxa territory in British Columbia has archeological sites with some of the oldest human-made artifacts in Canada, dated to 11,500 before the present (BP).

[citation needed] Human occupation of the Kootenay Rockies has been demonstrated by dated sites with evidence of quarrying and flint-knapping, especially of quartzite and tourmaline.

All these sites are within 50 km of Creston, with the exception of Blue Ridge, which is near the village of Kaslo, quite a distance north on the west side of Kootenay Lake.

Archaeologist Dr. Wayne Choquette believes that the artifacts represented in the Goatfell Complex, dated from 11,500 BP up to the early historical period, show that there has been no break in the archaeological record.

No evidence supports the conjecture that the region's first inhabitants emigrated from this area, nor that they were replaced or succeeded by a different people.

[citation needed] Other scholars, such as Reg Ashwell, suggest that the Ktunaxa moved to the British Columbia region in the early half of the 18th century, having been harassed and pushed there from East of the Rockies by the Blackfoot.

The Goatfell Complex, and specifically the techniques of manufacture of the tools and points, are part of a tradition of knapping that existed in the North American Great Basin and the intermontane west of the continent in the late Pleistocene.

[citation needed] From the time of the first Ktunaxa settlement in the Kootenays, until the historical period beginning in the late 18th century, there is little known of the people's social, political, and intellectual development.

[citation needed] As temperatures continued to warm, the glacial lakes drained and fish found habitat in the warmer waters.

The Lower Kootenay across the Pacific Northwest made fishing a fundamental part of their diet and culture, while maintaining the old traditions of game hunting.

What these European and North American scholars recorded has to be viewed with a critical eye, since they did not have the theoretical sophistication expected of anthropologists today.

They had seasonal and sometimes ritual hunts for bear, deer, caribou, gophers, geese, and the many other fowl in Lower Kootenay country.

Harry Holbert Turney-High, the first to write an extensive ethnography of the Ktunaxa (focusing on bands in the United States), records a detailed description of the harvesting of bark to make this canoe (67): A tree ... growing rather high in the mountains is sought.

Finding one of the desired size and quality, a man climbed it to the proper height and cut a ring around the bark with his elk-horn chisel or flint knife.

There was no scraping or seasoning, nor was it decorated in any way.Christian missionaries traveled to the Ktunaxa territories and worked to convert the peoples, keeping extensive written records of the process and of their observations of the culture.

The Ktunaxa had been exposed to Christianity as early as the 18th century, when a Lower Kootenay prophet from Flathead Lake in Montana by the name of Shining Shirt spread news of the coming of the 'Blackrobes' (French Jesuit missionaries) (Cocolla 20).

While there was missionary activity in Eastern North America for 200 years, the Ktunaxa were not the objects of the church's attentions until the mid-late 19th century.

[citation needed] While there was sometimes conflict between the Yaqan Nu'kiy and the local settler community at Creston, their relations were more characterized by peaceful coexistence.

By the turn of the 20th century, some Yaqan Nu'kiy were engaged in agricultural activities introduced by European settlers, but their approach to the land was different.

An example of the type of conflict that repeatedly arose between European settlers and Native farmers is shown by a newspaper article in the Creston Review dated Friday, 9 August 1912: A dispute over the rights to cut hay on the flat lands, between the Indians and the white men, which might have resulted in bloodshed, was settled Wednesday by W.F.

Mr. Lewis complained to Policeman Gunn who, as the definite boundry [sic] of the Indian reservation is not known was at a loss what to do because no violence was committed whereby he could act.

One farmer whose place is located near the reservation has been continually bothered by the Indians cutting his fences and turning their cattle in to graze on his property.

During the 20th century the Yaqan Nu'kiy gradually became involved in all the industries of the Creston valley: agriculture, forestry, mining, and later health care, education, and tourism.

[citation needed] Feeling that they have lost some traditions that are very important to them, the Ktunaxa are working to revive their culture, and particularly to encourage language study.

Concurrent with this, they are recording oral stories and myths, as well as to videotaping the practice of their traditional crafts and technologies, with spoken directions.

On 20 September 1974, the Kootenai Tribe headed by Chairwoman Amy Trice declared war on the United States government.

The United States government ultimately made a land grant of 12.5 acres (0.051 km2), the basis of what is now the Kootenai Reservation.